


Honeychild

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-19
Updated: 2009-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a bag by the door, and a note in the pocket of his discarded jeans, and Matt's trying not to think at all. SPK era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeychild

**Author's Note:**

> DEDICATED TO THE LOVELY **KONEKO_ZERO**; HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ♥
> 
> Ah, so, you might be able to guess that I've been poking around in my shiny new copy of _DN: How To Read_, because I'd never before realised that Mello apparently didn't contact Matt until December 2009. Naturally, the Matt/Mello shipper in me is going to disregard this piece of information blithely however, y'know, it played its part in the creation of this fic. As to the mood of the story itself, it was heavily influenced by the song ['In Too Deep'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ceTJsMe8-I), as sung by Jenny Morris -- you might be more familiar with the cover version by Belinda Carlisle, but the tone of the original is quite different -- which I kind of played on loop while I was writing this. General lack of sleep may also have had a part to play in where this went, I suspect, hah. *wry smile*
> 
> Near is eighteen years of age.

There are days when Matt wishes he could be one of those people who can genuinely look at their lives and not have have the faintest idea about where it was that everything had gone so terribly wrong. Perhaps it says something about his mentality, that he doesn't even bother so much as daydreaming about being someone who can claim no regrets at all but... he just thinks it would be nice to at least plead ignorance. Or, even better, oh god, innocence. He can't, though. The mess he lives in and calls his life is, without a doubt, more or less of his own making.

Close enough to it, anyway.

And he'd been the one who had promised, after all.

He casts a pointless glance in the direction of the Marlboros on the bedside table, then goes back to staring up at the pale expanses of the ceiling. There's a bag by the door and he's refusing to look at it, refusing to think about it; he studies the shape of the light fitting instead. One of his hands is knotted amongst the bed-sheets but the other plays, so gently as to be almost disconnected from the tension in the rest of his body, through the curls which hang at the edge of Near's face. Near. Eh, Near. Near is almost asleep, dozing in and out from consciousness to dreaming, and his chin rests against Matt's chest where he'd slumped, a little while ago, all sated and sweaty and scented of sex. His weight is heavier than you'd think from looking at him, but Matt likes the realness of it; the press of skin against skin, and the way that Near's hands rub at Matt's shoulders, even in his half-asleep state. Every now and then he opens his mouth, as though he's going to speak, though he never does. And sometimes he lets his lashes fall apart, and gazes up at Matt from that funny angle, god, that funny angle that has grown so familiar over these last few years, ever since a sixteen-year-old Near had leant across a model train track and kissed a seventeen-year-old Matt, who'd been so startled that he'd dropped the engine he'd been repairing, and they'd never found the too-tiny cogs afterwards, but they hadn't cared, because Matt had blurted out that he was only waiting until Mello needed him, _I promised_, and Near had simply shrugged and said that he'd already known that, _I understand_, and they'd fit so well in each others' arms that the rest hadn't been important.

Matt's lost track of how often they've been together, since that distant morning. But now it's evening, and the world has begun a slow turn in a different direction, and there's a page - torn from the pad of a hotel notebook - in the back pocket of his jeans, where they lie on the floor. A page, a message, and Near had brought it to him, and Matt had known what it was, the minute he'd seen the slighter boy's face, even before he had read it himself. Part of him hadn't even wanted to read it. Because part of him had forgotten that this was what he'd been waiting for all along; part of him had forgotten the hours spent monitoring the work of a certain blond mafioso; part of him had forgotten that the warm body pressed against him, now, was only ever supposed to have been a temporary fix.

He would wonder why Near had even brought him the note at all, except that he knows the answer to that question all too well.

Now Matt shifts slightly beneath Near's gaze, and Near moves as well, his hands palming Matt's shoulders and pushing himself upright again, his knees sliding back down to rest alongside Matt's hips. There's something almost childlike about the way he clings to Matt in his sleep, but there's nothing even remotely childlike about him when he's awake, and naked, and his slate-grey eyes are staring down at Matt as piercingly as they are now. There's always been a certain knowledge between them, though, since even before that first kiss, perhaps because Matt can see beneath that soft exterior, and always could, even when they'd been children. Matt can see beyond it in a way that even the rest of the SPK cannot because, while they can glimpse the steely mind within, Matt can see _Nate_. He can see flesh and blood; simple mortality. He can see a young man resting against his hips, all fine bones and a slightly curved stomach, white tangle of curls below, and a satisfied cock that presses softly against Matt's own belly, as Near leans forwards a little, to pull his crumpled shirt from amongst the sheets. Nothing less, nothing more, not even anything extraordinary, in some ways, because they've always been equals, when they're naked; equals, when he makes Near blush; equals, when Near says something completely inappropriate, that leaves people staring at Matt in such a way that he kind of wants to find a convenient roof to jump off... at least, until the next time Near's got him pressed against a bed, having private conversations with Matt's dick. It's surreal, he thinks, the way that people look at Near and see a child, because a childhood was the one thing which Near had never really had in the first place, despite all the toys and the baggy pyjamas - none of them had, at Wammy's, not a real childhood, full of careless summers, and dirt, and lost hours whittled away on blessed nothing. Not even Matt had had that, not really.

Matt closes his own eyes a little, memorising the feel of Near's body shifting against his. Near finishes pulling on his shirt, and then leans forwards again, the unbuttoned cotton falling open and brushing against Matt, as he curves downwards to kiss at the fine pale hair on Matt's chest. Near strokes his hands along Matt's sides, and coarse red hair rubs against softer white, and Matt shivers slightly at the feel of senstive skin on sensitive skin, as Near shimmies with the motion of his kisses.

"I should get back to work," Near says with a breath against Matt's lips, and the singular pronoun cuts a gash in Matt's soul because it had always before been _we _and _us_. He reaches out and grabs Nears arms, stops him from moving away, stops him from standing, stops him from leaving, because there's a scrap of paper in Matt's jeans pocket and the both of them know it, and there's a childhood promise in Matt's mind, which he cannot ignore, and the both of them know that, as well. They both know it, though neither of them wants to talk about it, because Near has always known that this was how things were going to go, and Matt knows what it feels like to be left behind.

"Stay just a little longer..." he whispers, and his voice is breaking, because it's the first time he's had to ask... because his life is being torn in two directions, and he's the one doing the tearing.

Near looks at him, and stops pulling away; his eyes say, _I know it_, and his hands, as they press back down against Matt's chest, say, _I get it_. But his lips, as he leans in and kisses at Matt's trembling lashes, first one eyelid, and then the other, say something deeper, which Matt pretends he cannot understand, because those three words would make it impossible to keep his vow; impossible to leave.

"Sit up," says Near softly, and he tugs at Matt's shoulders until Matt obliges, and provides the white-haired teen with a lap to sit on. It's so steady and so simple, the sex. Their hands and their bodies knit together with the ease of familiarity, and there's a warmth to it, a warmth that's not just about Near's fingers sliding between the two of them; a warmth that's not just about the slightly-sticky lube-slicked handprint that Near leaves against Matt's shoulder as he rises forwards-up-down, and then encompasses Matt with his body. Matt puts his hands on Near's hips and holds him, and Near winds his hands around Matt's neck. Near kisses him, touches Matt's hair and Matt's shoulders, pulls backwards a little, rising and moving against Matt's cock, watches Matt as the pressure between them builds; watches, until he loses himself in the motions of his own body as he rides Matt, so slowly that the red-head can barely breathe, so slowly, because this is goodbye and they both know it. Because they're fighting a god. Because a god has already fallen at the fore of the battle lines. Because their lives have always been destined to be short. Because Matt goes to help a man who thinks nothing of blowing himself sky-high. Because Matt promised he would go, whenever that man called for him.

Because they play a game with the universe, and they always have.

They were raised to it.

And when Near comes, his head falls back, and his thighs clench, and his nails dig deeper, and it's Matt's name upon his lips. And Matt closes his eyes, closes his eyes and keeps them that way, even after he's moaned to completion himself, even after Near has pulled away, his fingers trailing the length of Matt's face one last time; even after Near gathers his things and closes the door, so softly, behind himself. Because neither of them want to say goodbye. And because that's how Matt wants to remember Near, until he sees him again, he thinks - all caught up in the feel of Matt's body, all flushed with desire and pleasure and _need_, a hot-pulsed honeychild in Matt's hands, and all Matt's, Matt's, Matt's alone.

  
Matt doesn't see him again, but it _is _what what he remembers, when the guns fire.


End file.
